


The Darkness of a Rose

by lasirene



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: 1920s, 20th Century, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, F/M, France (Country), Horror, Major Original Character(s), Paris (City), Post-Canon, Psychological Horror, Roses, Slow Updates, Unrequited Love, Work In Progress, christine and raoul are married and happy, erik is dead but not dead, erik might actually be a ghost
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2018-12-01 17:20:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11491041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lasirene/pseuds/lasirene
Summary: The once grand Paris opera house is little more than a burnt out shell. Parisians still whisper in the late nights about the strange fire, the mystery of the ghost that haunted the beautiful halls. Few dare to approach the ruin, and those that dare to enter come out hysteric, speaking of moving shadows and a malicious air. To enter is to enter madness.Twenty-five years have passed since the day it burnt. Christine Daae and Raoul de Chagny married, and bore a single daughter, Evelina. They have sheltered their daughter from whispers of the Opera Ghost, wanting to forget the events themselves and protect their daughter from the sinking fear that he may not be dead.But such cannot stop the dead, and the dead have had twenty-five years to seethe.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on the game Mystery Legends: Phantom of the Opera by BigFish. I highly recommend playing the game, or watching walkthroughs on YouTube! While this fic will not exactly follow the gameplay, some aspects will be mirrored, and will also take some elements from the Leroux novel.  
> The character of Evelina de Chagny is not truly an original character, as she comes from the game, however, her development during the story is all mine.  
> 

            The sky was the slate gray of early winter, seeming to hang close to the earth.  The towering buildings of Paris stretched for the heavens, and the iron silhouette of the Eiffel Tower stood proud over her city.  She walked as if in a dream, her mother and father on either side of her; her hand held fast to her mother’s elbow, but she turned her head to look back up the theatre steps, regarding the building, the streaming audience departing.

            “Did you enjoy the play, Evelina?” her mother asked.

            Evelina turned away from the theatre to smile at her mother, eyes agleam in delight.  “I loved it!  It was such a beautiful story!  The romance . . .”  She let out a dreamy sort of sigh.  “But what was it like, when you were performing?” she asked.  “Was it so delightful?”

            “Your mother was magnificent,” her father replied; Evelina turned her head, a smile once more lighting up her features.  He raised his walking stick, waving it through the air.  “Christine Daae, the rising star, enrapturing all of Paris with her voice, her beauty!”

            “Raoul, please,” Christine protested.  “It was not nearly that simple.  There was competition, for one, and I had to learn to be such a good singer.”

            Evelina saw something in her father’s expression shift, a darkening of his eyes and hardening of his mouth.  He tapped his walking stick to the ground, the metal tip striking audibly against the cobbles.  No words came from his lips, and so Evelina turned back to her mother.

            “Were you tutored?” she asked.  “By who?  They must have been a magnificent teacher!”

            “He was,” Christine replied, her voice little more than a whisper.  “A genius, truly.”

            Evelina bit at her lip, drawing herself to silence.  The tension that had strung itself between her parents was near palpable.  She had never managed to learn the full story of the situation around their meeting as adults.  Evelina knew the pair had met as children, by the sea, and been childhood sweethearts.  In time, they had been separated, but had reunited at the Paris opera years later.  Christine had been performing as the understudy for Carlotta, the leading soprano of the day.  Raoul, the young and wealthy Vicomte de Chagny, had recognized her from his box seat, and had rushed to see her.  Their courtship had been a rushed affair, but they had been well and truly in love.  Evelina could still see that love gleaming in their eyes whenever they looked at one another.

            And yet this tension, revolving around the mention of a teacher.  There was a story there, Evelina felt sure of it.  When she had been younger, and Madame Valerius still alive, the old woman had said strange things.  There had been something about an angel of some sort, something that Raoul always hurried the conversation away from.  She had been far too young to understand it then, yet now she knew too little to understand.

            And there was also the strange fact that her parents never liked to talk about the opera.  The opera house was no more than a burnt out husk anymore.  Neither of her parents went anywhere near it at any time.  Evelina never understood it.  It was the very place they had truly fallen in love, and yet they acted like it did not exist.  To her, it made no sense.  She had asked, once and only once, why they avoided it.  The topic had been dismissed with a sharpness that was uncharacteristic, but it was the look in their eyes that had stopped her.  There was a certain gleam, a _haunting_ , as if there were some memory they did not want to relive.

            Evelina stole a glance at either of them, and noted that yes, that look was back and persisting.  The tension had faded out, but it seemed both her parents were trapped in a world of memory.  Her throat itched to ask about it, to ask who this mysterious tutor was, but she dared not press them.  Not now.

***

            The de Chagny estate was a beautiful chateau set far from the city.  The large house was set on sprawling grounds and surrounded by well-manicured gardens.  The estate was kept private by a handsome wrought iron fence, though having to stop the car to get out and open the gate was a small annoyance.  None of the family complained over it, though; it was far better than having just anyone come by.

            The engine rumbled as they drew to a halt before the gate.  The driver stepped out of the car and hurried to the gate.  Evelina sat in the back with her mother, her hands clasped in her lap.  The drive home had only been idle chatter.  Normally on these days, when they took a day trip into Paris, they always had something to talk about.

            Her father turned about, dark eyes somber, mouth a grim line.  Raoul and Christine shared an intent look, and then Christine began to speak.

            “My teacher’s name was Erik,” she said.  Her voice was far hollower than Evelina was accustomed to hearing.  “He was a genius, in many regards.  He designed buildings, composed music, could play instruments and sing far better than any other mortal on this earth.  He was a prodigy of everything he set his mind to.  And in another life, under other circumstances, he would have been a great man.  He could have ruled kingdoms but for one thing.”

            “And what was that?” Evelina whispered.

            “He was born with a deformity.  His face . . .”  Beside her, Christine shuddered.  Raoul’s gloved hand reached back and took hers in a fervent grip of passion.  “It was a frightening vision, and so he wore a mask, always.  He taught me through the mirror of my dressing room, and I believed him to be an angel sent from Heaven by my poor father.  He was only a man – a tragic man.”

            “Why does it upset you so – both of you?”  Evelina looked to her father.  “Did he love mother?”

            The driver’s door opened, the man returning to his seat.  The car lurched forward in silence besides the motor, crawling through the swung open gates.  On the other side, they stopped again and the driver stepped out.  It was Raoul who spoke in answer to her question.  “How could he not?  Your mother was the angel, his saving grace.  If Erik ever did one thing right, it was to give Christine her voice.”

            “He loved me too much,” Christine continued.  “And he feared I would leave him for Raoul.  He did many terrible things – things you never need know of.  But in the end, he understood, and released me.”

            Evelina turned her face away, staring out the window of the car.  Her eyes stung, but she did not dare to reach up to brush at them.  She did not have to ask; the man was dead, another tragedy in the endless tragedy that must have been his life.

            “It’s why we stay away from the opera,” Raoul said, turning to face forward again.  “For all the sweet memories it would give, there is a flood of bitter agonies to match.”

            “I understand,” Evelina whispered.  At twenty years old, she was old enough to know her own sorrows and desire no return of them.  She unfolded her hands, taking her mother’s hand in one of hers, and gripping her father’s arm in the other.  She knew no words to offer to comfort them, and so she said the only words she could: “I love you.”

             Her mother’s hand squeezed hers, and in the faint reflection of the windshield, she could see her father’s smile.  She pulled her hands back to her lap as the driver returned once again.  They rolled forward down the lane, fallen leaves blowing in the wake of their passage.  Evelina stared out her window, watching as the chateau drew closer.

            Within moments, they had pulled up the front steps and disembarked from the car.  Evelina started up the steps, well aware of her parents behind her, hands clasping and lips pressing together in a tender kiss.

            Evelina froze at the top of the stairs, looking down in confusion at what lay before her on the stones.  It was a letter, weighed down by what looked like a tile; the color was different than those used about the de Chagny estate, and it looked old, worn smooth over the top.  The letter itself was unaddressed, folded to hide the words.  Evelina bent down, pushing the rock aside and picking the paper up.  Her lips parted, breath coming a beat faster as the hair on her arms stood to sudden attention.  She was overcome with a brief but blazing desire to tear the paper to shreds and rush indoors.

            Instead, she folded the paper smaller, smaller.  She was almost panting, eyes wide.  Why she did not wish to hand it over to her parents she did not know.  She had to see it first.

            She flew into the estate, the paper all but burning the palm that clutched it.  She rushed up the stairs, the muted gold of her skirt swirling and black heels clattering on the marble.  Her dark hair fell into her eyes, her hand pressed hard against the railing, her breath clawed her throat.  She felt swept up in a passion she did not think she had ever felt before.

            Evelina flew into her room, the door closing soft behind her.  She leaned back against it, trembling, pressing the mystery letter to her breast.  For a moment she stood still, her heart fighting to ease from its dither.  Then the letter was falling open in her hands, revealing a rushed hand.  The ink was smeared, letters falling at a hard slant and spiked at every curve.  Harsh, cruel.  Demanding.

            Evelina held it before her eyes and read, lips moving in silence.

_My love, the stage has been set once more.  The time is nigh.  Return to my house, and reprise the role meant for you in your final performance._

            Her heart crashed in her chest, pounded in her skull, pulsed in her veins.  Her hands trembled, the letter shaking in her grip.  The words doubled in her eyes, blurred and bled down the pale page.  Evelina gave a choked cry, the letter falling to the floor as she raised her hands to her head.  She shut her eyes, falling into the darkness behind her eyelids.

            The chills swarming over her skin roused her.  Evelina shuddered once, her whole body convulsing as her arms came around herself tight.  She opened her eyes, and they only opened wider at what she saw.  Her bedroom was gone, replaced by a room that swallowed her with its size and its grandeur.  The domed ceiling loomed above her, cold sunlight spilling down from the glass dome.  Red curtaining decorated the room, hung in the small, repeating arches that decorated the uppermost region of the walls.  The arches were gilded, gleaming but unpolished.  The floor beneath her feet was ornate, the design radiating from the center circle.  Evelina’s head swam as she looked at it.

            “ _Christine_.”

            Evelina started.  A gasp stalled in her throat.  Her impossibly wide eyes tore throughout the room, searching for where the whisper had come from.  The only other occupant of the room was a puppet who stood by a large curtain that blocked the entrance to the building.

            But there had been a voice.  Evelina was sure of it.

            On shaking legs, she stepped further into the room.  It swallowed her in its vastness, leaving her alone in its sea of space. “Who’s there?” she called out.  Her voice shook, and she cringed at the sound of it.  “Who are you, and where am I?”

            “ _My love, don’t you remember me?  Or have you forgotten your angel of music so easily?_ ”

            “I don’t know any angels,” she whispered.  Her hands, slicked with sweat, grabbed at her skirt.  The dark damask patterns distorted around her hands, seeming to bleed down the fabric, as the ink of the letter had bled.

            Evelina turned around, rushing to the closed doors.  She grabbed onto the handle of one and gave a fierce pull – yet the door did not even budge.  A desperate, choking sound escaped her, and she rattled the doors repeatedly.  “Please please please!” she chanted under her breath as she gave a last heave.

            A laugh rippled through the air, distorted and strange.  Evelina spun about again, tears brimming in her eyes as she stared about.

            “ _You cannot escape, my love.  I have waited so long for this day._ ”

            “Who are you?!”  Her shout echoed through the room, her own voice distorting and bouncing back to her.  Mockery, all of it was mockery!

            “ _The black roses, my dear; the black roses shall tell you everything if you bring them to me.  You must find them, and all you have forgotten shall be remembered._   _Past this room; this is a room of beginnings, my love, and nothing more._ ”


	2. II

            Evelina stared around the room – a foyer, still resplendent even through the layers of dirt.  She had never seen a room quite like it.  Though foyers of fine chateaus of her father’s friends were elegant, just as the one in her own home, they were nothing compared to this.  This was not a house.  What it was, she was not certain.  All she knew for certain was that she was trapped.  There had to be a way out, somewhere.

            The voice, whoever it was, desired her to go deeper into the building.  But did she dare?  What game did this mysterious person wish her to play?  What did he mean about black roses?  And his talk of angels, of Christine . . .

            Evelina craned her neck, peering up to the domed ceiling.  Could this place be what she feared it was?

            Teeth caught on her lip, worrying at soft skin.  She lowered her head again, glanced over her shoulder towards the heavy doors.  Locked, barred, perhaps even boarded up; however it was they were sealed, there would be no escape through them.  Evelina would have to go deeper.

            Her shoulders rolled back, chin lifting in determination.  She turned her attention again to the large curtain closing off the room.  The low heels of her black shoes clattered on the hard floor, a rhythmic sound that she feared could drive her near mad in the otherwise perfect silence.

            She stopped at the curtain, having to crane her neck back slightly to see its top.  It was a dull red, of perhaps that dull quality was only due to the scrim of dust coating it.  The excess material pooled on the floor at her feet.  The curtain was blank, except for two words: _Don Juan_.

            Evelina frowned.  The words held little meaning to her.  Don Juan was no more than a tale of a Spanish libertine, told in plays, poems, operas.

            Her eyes widened, and with one hand she touched the curtain.  Could it be a stage curtain, for one such play?  It was surely close to the proper size for such.  Was she in a theatre?

            Evelina closed her hands on the curtain.  If she was to go any further in this building, she would have to pass through it.  She gave an experimental tug on it, but the curtain only swayed.  A quick glance above proved it was securely hung on a heavy rope . . . which came down to a some sort of figure off to her left.

            She released the curtain, moving closer to the figure.  It was a puppet, but as she drew closer, she noticed a disfigurement on the right half of its face.  She grimaced, looking aside for a moment.  It was an unpleasant sight, with its hinged mouth and staring eyes, the ruined visage.  It matched the building, she noted.  The peeling wallpaper and fallen plaster, pictures hung askew, a couch whose back was torn open and stuffing leaking out.  Even the ticket windows were boarded up – save for one, though it was too dark to see inside it.

            In fact, the whole room was a bit dark.  Too dark, especially when she could almost feel unseen eyes watching her.  But where would a light switch be?

            She looked to her right, the side of the room she had not yet looked at closely.  There was a counter, and a door behind it that was ajar.  She hurried over, stopping at the counter for a moment.  Posters and a few newspaper clippings hung on the walls behind it.  Seeing no way over, Evelina braced her hands on the counter and climbed onto it, then over to slip down to the other side.  She peered at the newspaper clipping, but could not read the print.

            She went to the door and pulled it open.  The inside was dark, darker than the foyer, but there was what appeared to be an electrical box on the far wall.  Evelina stepped into the dark, body tensing as she inched further and further into the dark inside.  She shuffled along the floor to avoid tripping, and managed to reach the electrical box without any accidents.

            It opened more easily than she had expected it to.  She shifted a bit to one side to let in what meager amounts of natural lighting could come into the room from the foyer.  A sea of wires was all she could easily make out.

            Squinting, she leaned in closer.  There were lights at the top, numbered in ascending order, and a wire came down from each.  She took the first delicately between her fingers, and followed it down to a row of switches.  The switch she flipped turned on the light.  A smile, both of relief and triumph, bloomed on her lips.  Feeling a bit surer, and a bit less helpless, Evelina continued to work through the wires.

            It took her less time than she had expected to finish.  Soon, she had flipped the last switch.  The single lightbulb in the room flickered for a moment, went dark, and then came on in full force.  Evelina winced, closing her eyes tight against the sudden brightness.  She was quick to open her eyes again and look around the room.

            She stood in a coat closet.  Coats hung on either side of her, covered in dust and with holes eaten into them by moths.  There were a few more posters, these in far worse condition than the ones outside the coat room.  Evelina looked at them, hoping to find some sort of clue as to her location.

            She finally found one on a tattered poster.  The bottom half was missing, but the portion that was still intact showed a beautiful building.  Across the top of the page were four words that made her blood turn to ice: The Paris Opera House.

***

            Time was meaningless as she sat on the threadbare couch, refusing to lean against the ransacked back of the couch.  She did not care about the dust accumulating on her dress.  She could only dwell upon the horrible poster.

            She had her answer, but it was worse than she had ever feared.

            She was inside the opera house.  This was the place of her parents’ romance, and the ghosts that haunted them.  Had her mother ever sat in this very space?  Her father?  Surely they had tread upon the very floor she stared at, perhaps even stood in the place her eyes fixated upon without focus.

            How long had she been in the forsaken and abandoned building?  More importantly, how had she come to be in such a place?  Try as she might, she could not remember anything after coming home from the play, after the letter.  Had she been gone long enough that her parents were worried?  Would they even know where to look?

            But sitting and moping would do her no good.  Bemoaning her situation to herself would not help her escape.

            Evelina’s eyes narrowed.  Her mouth pressed into a thin line.  Her hands clenched into fists.  She would get out of this place, and no mysterious voice would stop her.  She would go deeper into the opera, and she would find a way to escape.

            She stood, and with purpose in her stride, returned to the curtain.  It was too heavy for her to pull down.  Yet the puppet . . . why would he be standing there, dressed as an usher in his tattered suit?  And with his hand outstretched, as if he were waiting for something.

            Evelina slanted a gaze to the ticket window.  A light shone in the one open space, and she could see a shape like a person within it.  Another puppet?  Was this place filled with such figurines?

            She moved to the window, hands curled shut at her sides.  Upon drawing near, she saw she was correct.  This one was without clothes, without face; it lay sprawled in a chair, joints bent in odd angles.  It looked . . . dead.  Gooseflesh crawled over Evelina’s arms.  She shuddered, but moved closer.

            A small sign hung where glass once stood.  The paint was chipped and fading, but the ghosts of the letters were still legible.  ‘Open’.

            “Of course,” Evelina said to herself, keeping her voice low to stop it from echoing back to herself in the vast and empty room.  “A ticket to enter this freakish, horrendous show.  A ticket for Don Juan.”

            A hand slapped down onto the countertop.  Evelina lurched back from the window.  A scream rang in her ears, echoing; her own, though she had no memory of voicing it.  The hand drew back off the counter, falling with a sound of wood clattering together, like a dancing puppet.

            Evelina’s head jerked up, mouth agape and eyes staring.  The puppet behind the counter still lay in its heap of limbs and joints.  Except for its arm that swayed like a dying pendulum.

            It had _moved_.  It had moved, entirely of its own power.  It had slammed its hand onto the counter, and . . .

            And had left a ticket.

            Evelina inched closer.  Her eyes stuck to the puppet.  She glanced down at the ticket for a span of seconds before snatching it up.  She whirled, all but running away from the ticket booth.  Her breath came in hitching gasps, on the verge of sobbing in her horror.  She looked at the ticket again, verifying that it still read what she thought it read.

            The original title on the ticket was inked out.  Instead, in crude red paint, was the name _Don Juan_.  Just like on the curtain.

            Evelina shuddered, clutching the ticket in her hand.  She turned to the usher, her gaze far more wary now, having seen one such piece in action.  Surely this time would not be so frightening.  The element of surprise was wasted.  If this one moved, she would be ready for it.  She would not scream.

            Heels clattering on the floor, Evelina approached the usher.  Its outstretched hand seemed patient enough.  She pressed the ticket into its grasp and stepped back.  She would not scream.

            She would not scream.

            She _would not_ -

            The usher’s hand closed over the ticket.  Evelina’s breath caught in her throat so hard that it hurt, and her hand flew up to grasp the pale column of flesh.  Her pulse hammered under her touch.  With wide eyes, she watched the usher lift the ticket to his mangled face – even moving it closer to the left side of his face, as if he were poorer of sight in his right eye.  He pocketed it, and his head turned towards Evelina.  She whimpered, drawing back a bit further.  Her other hand drew up, trembling between them, as if she could ward him off.

            The usher raised his hand and grasped his battered top hat.  He lifted it from his head in a brief salute.  Then he yanked on the curtain rope, hitching up the sea of red fabric, before releasing it to crash the curtain to the ground.

            A cloud of dust rose up and blew outward.  Evelina broke into a hard, rasping cough.  Her eyes watered even behind tightly shut lids.  She waved at the air, trying in vain to clear the dust.

            The air refused to clear, though the dust seemed to draw back and coalesce.  The room darkened, the almost cheerful lights sinking to bruised shades of blue and purple.  Evelina peered into the new gloom.  She could swear that there was a figure on the other side of the fallen curtain, as dark as the rest of the space, save for a pale smudge that was shaped rather like a face.

            It was drawing closer.

            Evelina felt frozen, her limbs heavy and pulse throbbing heavy under her skin.  The dark vision drew closer, closer, _closer_ as she pleaded silently for it to stop.  The air seemed to hiss and whisper.  What was once dust now appeared as a black mist.

            “ _My love, how I have missed you_.”

            Evelina could feel herself threatening to swoon.  It was the voice, no longer detached and one with the very air.  Tears pricked her eyes.  She managed a staggering step backwards that threatened to spill her to the ground.

            “ _Did you miss my house, oh angel who hath forsaken me?  Did you think you could leave me so easily?_ ”

            The vision had drawn close enough for Evelina to truly see it.  A tall figure, dressed in black robes.  The white face was motionless, without a mouth; the only discerning feature were the eyes visible behind it, burning like green fires.  It did not seem to walk, but to _glide_ across the floor.

            “What do you want from me?”  Her voice was choked, barely more than a whisper.

            The green eyes flashed, and his words turned into a growl.  “ _You who left me dare to ask such a foolish question?  I want what I always wanted.  I want you, you who were stolen from me._ ”

            The room went suddenly dark, as if the fog had crashed in and blotted out all light.  Evelina cried out, flinching into herself.  Fingers stirred her hair, if for only a second before the lights returned in full force.  And one last whisper worked through the air.

“ _I want my revenge_.”


	3. III

            Evelina trembled under the light, the oil-slick voice still slipping over her skin.  For a painful moment, she was pinned in place.  She could not go backward and escape through the entryway, and she couldn’t bear to go forward.  But if she wanted to leave, her only hope was in finding some way to escape by going forward.

            Forward, then.  Evelina moved forward on stiff legs.  Her heels clattered against the floor, falling quiet only when she crossed over the dusty curtain that had fallen.  She crossed under the archway and out of the foyer, entering an even more vast space than she had previously stood in.

            The ceiling was impossibly far above her.  A dull chandelier hung down, its electric lights dimmed by dust.  Before her, a wide set of low stairs ascended, partitioned into three sections.  On either side, the stairs led to individual hallways; directly before Evelina, they led up to a set of large, wooden double doors flanked by two statues that mirrored each other.  The doors, however, were blocked by rubble, collapsed from the railings of the second story.  An opera house; surely the double doors would have led to the seats, and the stairs to the boxes higher up – both inaccessible with all the debris.

            “ _Welcome to my opera house_.”  The voice, disembodied once again into something not unlike a purr.  “ _Not as beautiful as it once was, but I can remember its beauty as if it were yesterday._ ”

            “Who are you?” Evelina shouted, hands balling into hard fists at her sides.  “Where are you?”

            “ _I am who I always have been, and am where I always have been.  I will be waiting for you._ ”

            Evelina made a small sound in the back of her throat in distaste.  “A real answer couldn’t hurt anyone,” she muttered under her breath.  With a shake of her head, she turned her attention to the two hallways.  Both looked equally promising to lead her deeper into the building, and neither showed any inclination of bearing a free exit.  Evelina drifted to the right, mounting the steps and moving down the hallway.

            Much like the rest of the opera house so far, the hall was a vision of architecture and art.  More statues stood by the walls, which bore beautiful fresco works and elegant wood panels.  The beauty distracted her for a moment from the sight at the end of the hall.  Evelina gasped in delight, seeing a set of doors across form her.  She fan across the floor, grasping the handles tight.  She hissed, lurching her hands back from the metal handles; they were freezing cold, so much so that touching them almost hurt.

            Evelina steeled herself for the cold and closed one hand around a handle.  She gave it a twist, and though the handle turned, the door refused to budge when she pushed at it.  Gritting her teeth, Evelina set her shoulder against it, pushing with all her body.  Still it held fast!  Evelina groaned, slamming her side into the door once last time.

            As she stepped back, the cold sunk into her skin.  Looking at the glass revealed no glimpse of the outside, only an image of ice frozen in place.  Were the doors locked?  Or frozen shut?  Evelina wilted; she would not be escaping through those doors either.

            But she had to continue; she had to escape, go home.  Evelina straightened again, turning back down the hallway.  She had passed two other entryways in her hopeful rush.  Perhaps there would be exits through them.

            The first entered into a salon.  Unlike the rest of the place so far, the room was utterly sacked.  Broken furniture lay in drunken sprawls across the room.  The paintings hung on the walls were dark, brooding images.  Evelina stepped inside, careful to skirt around fallen pieces of plaster and furniture.  She approached the fireplace, where a pile of wood smoldered.  A low heat emanated from the embers, and she took a moment to huddle there in an attempt to warm herself.

            It was by chance that she raised her gaze from the ruddy glow of the dying fire, but she was glad she did.  Evelina’s eyes fell upon a glass panel in the mantle, and upon the object locked inside: a single black rose.

            Evelina’s eyes widened.  She bent slightly, putting her gaze level with the ebon flower.  The voice had demanded she bring the black roses to him.  Could they be a key out of this nightmare?

            Evelina pressed her fingers against the glass tightly.  She tried to slide the panel in either direction, but it refused to move.  She stood upright again, studying the mantle.  Something had to open the panel, and if it would not budge, then surely it was locked in some fashion, and surely there was some sort of a key.

            The back of the mantle bore an engraved image of elaborate detail.  The longer Evelina looked at it, the more certain she became that there was a slight dip in the very center, a certain shadow.  As if there were a hole.

            Feeling a small surge of triumph, Evelina raised a hand and pressed the pad of her thumb against the shallow dip.  She pressed hard, grimacing against the discomfort of the ridges of the image against her skin.  Quickly drawing back her thumb, she turned the pad towards her and looked at the impressions pressed into her skin.  Just as she had hoped, a small keyhole shape was raised on her skin.  It faded quickly, but it was there.

            Knowing there was a key was little help in finding one, though.  How many rooms were in the opera house?  How many levels?  The search would surely take days!

            A rustling of fabric caused Evelina to whirl around.  The briefest flash of dark fabric brushed by the doorway.  Evelina hesitated a moment; she couldn’t bring herself to trust anything in this building, but what other leads did she have?  Without letting herself dwell on the issue further, she scrambled around the hulking forms of shattered wood.  She peered into the hallway, just catching another dark flash of movement going down another hallway.  With rushing steps, she fell into pursuit.  As she stepped into the hallway, she heard the sound of a door closing.  Evelina ran to the door, yanking it open.  But no one was inside.

            There was no real surprise in her upon finding the room uninhabited.  Still, she stepped inside to examine the space.  Judging from the desks and faded posters hung on the walls, she gathered it to be the manager’s office.

            A closer look around brought Evelina’s attention to a strip of fabric draped over the corner of one of the desks.  She approached it hesitantly, brow furrowed and lips drawn down the faintest bit.  She stopped by the desk, staring at the dark material.  Her skin crawled as she drew her hand close and flicked it off to the ground.  Still, she began to sift through the organized clutter of the desk.

            Evelina shuffled through papers, thumbed through pens, pawed at small objects of seemingly no purpose.  By the time she reached the drawers, a bone deep weariness and annoyance was sinking into her.  There hadn’t been a single key.  If her captor was trying to help her, he could at least make himself useful instead of leading her onto a wild chase.  After the first few drawers, she began to mutter darkly under her breath.

            “When I get out of here,” Evelina hissed to herself as she rifled through the last drawer, “I’ll find out who this sick man is and I’ll . . . I’ll-”

            A thin hand fell on Evelina’s shoulder.  The young woman cried out in shock, jerking upright even as she spun about and shrank against the desk.  The sight of what it was made her scream out again.

            Once, surely, the _thing_ before her had been a man.  Now, a tattered suit and molded top hat sat upon a gaunt face with bulging eyes.  The skin had mostly rotted away, though it clung to the bones beneath in odd places.  A full set of teeth formed a ghastly, too wide grin.  The hand that swung at the skeleton’s side was all bone; it had _touched_ her, oh God it had _TOUCHED_ her dress!  Evelina would have ripped the garment from her and burned it then and there if it weren’t her only article of clothing.

            The skeleton opened it’s jaws, only to click them shut again.  The milky eyes rolled as it raised a hand to its hat.  The hat lifted away, barely, in a salutary gesture.

            “Get away from me!”  Evelina’s voice came out in a choked and trembling gasp.  Her vision blurred at the sting of tears.

            The skeleton raised its hands as if to show her it meant no harm.  One hand extended, closed in a firm fist.  Evelina choked out another cry, pressing closer to the desk.  The fingers unfurled with low clattering sounds . . . and revealed a key in its palm.

            The key was small, incredulously small.  Evelina’s revulsion abruptly vanished, excused by the hard slam of confusion.  She looked from key to bone face to key.  This . . . this _thing_ was helping her?

            The skeleton thrust its hand forward, bones clattering and the last of its tendons creaking.  Evelina shrank back, not as far as before.  She looked a last time at its face, trying to read any expression on its permanently grinning visage.  Finally, with a hesitant and shaking hand, she reached out.  Her fingertips brushed over the web of bones and muscle that formed the palm; they felt cold, almost slimy even.  Her teeth clenched in a grimace.  But her fingers closed over the key, and she drew it easily into her own grasp.

            Evelina examined the tiny key for a moment before looking up at the skeleton again.  She nodded shakily, her smile weak but present.  “Th-thank you,” she stammered out.

            The skeleton brought its hand back to its hat with a flourish before sketching her a clattering bow.  Evelina’s smile became a bit firmer as she was unable to keep from feeling a brief flare of bemusement at the display.  Her gaze gravitated back to the key, marveling at it for a moment.

            When she raised her head again, the suited skeleton had vanished.


	4. IV

            Evelina trembled all over as she left the manager’s office.  Moving puppets seemed so tame now in comparison to the animated corpse she had encountered.  Her mind kept screaming that she had touched it, dead flesh and bare bone.  A feeling of uncleanness had settled over her.  How could she continue to live after such contact?  Surely she should fall to the ground and die!

            The key digging into the palm of her hand was the only tether she had to reality.  She had to focus.  She had to escape.  Her parents would be terrified for her.  Surely they would search high and low to find her?  Or perhaps she could escape before then.

            Evelina could only hope she had been gone a day so far; every time she had seen a window and looked out, there had been daylight.  The quality of light had assured her it was not the same day that she had picked up the letter – damn that letter!  Though she had not been conscious in the opera house for more than a few hours, the question was how long she had lain on the floor before returning to consciousness.  Had it been a few hours overnight?  A day?  Longer?  Did her parents know she was gone?  Were they grieving?

            The salon was a blur through the tears suspended in her eyes.  A lingering smell of smoke stung at her lungs.  She breathed past it, blinking away her tears as fast as she could.  The room was the same, all ransacked and chaos, and the black rose still hid within the mantel.

            Evelina clutched the key tighter in her fist.  She marched across the room, the mantel looming ever closer.  The black rose was the focal point of her world in that moment, the key to her salvation.  Surely if she did as her cruel captor asked, she would eventually be freed?

            She had to lean close to the engravings to find the keyhole.  It was so small, just like the key that she carefully held between her fingers.  For a moment she stared at the key, a wild fear that it wouldn’t fit rising in her and clamping tight around her throat.  Evelina closed her eyes, her breaths ragged and loud in her ears as she forced such incredulous thoughts aside.  It would work.  It had to work.  She opened are eyes again, staring at the key only a second before looking back to her goal.  With careful movements and baited breath, she raised the key and slowly pushed it in.  To her great relief, the key slid in without trouble, and turned with ease and a delicate _click_.  Relief crashed through her so suddenly she had to let go of the key and brace both hands on the mantelpiece to keep from swooning.

            The glass panel had slid open partially, just enough for Evelina to hook the tip of a nail in.  It slid back with surprising ease.  A cloying, sickly-sweet perfume reached out, and Evelina couldn’t stop herself from wrinkling her nose.  A flutter of distaste ran through her as she reached into the small alcove.

            “Ow!”  Evelina jerked her hand back, stepping away from the fireplace.  She raised her hand, unsurprised to see a drop of blood beading at the tip of her middle finger.  Another glance at the rose proved what her finger had found out the hard way: the stem was thorned.

            “As if being trapped here isn’t enough,” she grumbled under her breath.  She reached in again, this time bending down so she could see the thorns.  Her fingers closed carefully on the stem, shying from the thorns.  This time there was no pain, and she pulled the rose out into the open.

            In the light, the petals looked more ashy than black.  A gentle touch from her other hand proved it to be as soft as any other rose, and yet . . .

            “What sadness could rob a rose of all its color?” Evelina asked, holding the rose into the light to examine it better.

            “ _Perhaps the sadness that you wrought on my heart._ ”

            Evelina spun about, her own gasp echoing in her ears.  She wasn’t surprised to see nothing, though that only made her heart slam faster in her chest.  Her hand convulsed tighter on the rose, and the prick of the thorns made her hiss as she forced her grip loose again.

            “I did nothing to you,” she muttered under her breath.  She waited for a few breaths, but this time no voice called to her.  She looked back to the rose for a moment before stealing a breath.  There was no point in waiting to return it.  She only had to find where he was hiding.

            She left the salon, delving deep into thought.  If this was indeed the same person who had taught her mother how to sing so beautifully, perhaps there was a hint in the things her parents had told her earlier.  She remembered her mother saying something about her lessons . . . something about mirrors . . .

            _He taught me through the mirror of my dressing room_ . . .

            Evelina bolted down the hallway, heels echoing sharp through the cavernous spaces.  He had said he was where he always had been, and surely he meant a mirror, if only she could find one.  Her mind whirled, wild as a storm.  A mirror would be in a powder room, and a powder room could surely be found close to the auditorium.  Surely there would be a powder room on this floor!

            She flew through the hall and into the vast room before the auditorium.  Not wanting to waste a second, Evelina scrambled over the low railings that partitioned the stairs into the three parts that led to separate places.  The other hall surely had a powder room, and there she would find her captor his rose, and then she could be free.

            Evelina tore into the hallway, blind to the surface she stepped on.  Her eager flight sent her out onto the sheet of ice at the start of the hallway.  She cried out, her voice ringing in the empty hallway as her foot slid out from beneath her.  The ground rushed up to her, slamming first into her hip and shoulder, then the side of her head.  Evelina whimpered, her whole side aching from the impact.  She could only lay on the cold floor, a chill sinking steadily into her bones.

            When the throbbing ache died down to something more manageable, Evelina pushed herself into a sitting position.  Her head spun, forcing her to close her eyes a moment.  Blindly, she searched for the rose that had dropped from her hand.  Her fingers found the thorny stem, and carefully closed about it once more.  When she opened them again, she found herself staring down the hall, into the room at the end.  There was something . . . something hanging from the ceiling.

            Evelina gathered her feet under her, slowly rising back to her feet.  The rest of the floor was clear, and she was able to limp down the hall.

            A ballroom, she realized, a large and breathtaking ballroom.  The circular room was full of towering windows, many of them boarded up from the outside.  Cold air seeped through the gaps between board and wall.  Though the windows were boarded over, there were more windows in the higher part of the room, allowing ample light to spill into the room.

            In a normal circumstance, the chandelier would surely have been the center of attention.  It was a vast and gleaming thing, even with its gilded surface covered in dust.  But with the other ornaments in the room, the chandelier took second place.

            For hanging from the ceiling were three figures, ones Evelina knew all too well.

            Closest to her, and where her eyes could hardly move away from, her mother was entwined in the arms of the dark figure who tormented her so with his voice.  The puppet of her mother was dressed in a beautiful, pink gown.  Her captor was dressed as he had appeared to her earlier, in strange black raiment and with a pale mask covering all of his face.  They were trapped in the embrace of a waltz.

            Evelina could hardly bear to look at the third figurine, but she did.  Her blood ran cold, her flesh raised into a series of bumps.  Hung from his neck, a perfect likeness of her father dangled beneath the chandelier.

            “Oh,” Evelina whispered, her voice a sob, “what twisted fantasy is this?!”

            “ _You and I shall be together for eternity_ ,” the phantom voice whispered in her ears.  “ _None shall ever come between us again_.”

            “No!”  Evelina spun around, her hand lashing out and striking nothing but air.

            Evelina sobbed, covering her eyes with her free hand.  In seconds, tears were dampening her skin.  She couldn’t hope to stop them.  It wasn’t enough the monster would hold her captive, but he wanted to kill her father, steal her mother away forever!  And now he had her instead.

            Evelina looked down at the rose.  There was no hope in their bleak color; she was trapped, and the black petals only mocked her.

            Her hand convulsed into a fist, her mouth forming a grimace against a sob.  The pain of the thorns digging into her flesh grounded her, pulled her back from the chaos in her mind.  She had to escape.  She could escape.

            She would escape.  By any means necessary.

***

            The other door on the hallway was closed.  Evelina did not hesitate.  Her hand closed around the cold handle and gave it a brisk turn.  The door swept open, revealing a small but lovely room.  The damask pattern on the red wallpaper complemented that of the lush chairs.  Beautiful paintings of hung on the walls.  Even a small statue was tucked into its own alcove, curtains drawn back to reveal the masterpiece.  The room was soft, feminine, lovely.

            And directly across from her, hanging over the large counter with its porcelain sink, was a single mirror.

            It was a large thing, stretching up to the molding at the ceiling.  The gilt frame was elaborate, full of so many charming details that Evelina couldn’t possibly take them all in.  Her own reflection looked back at her.  For a moment she stared at herself.  There was no haunted look in her eye, no sickly pallor to her skin.  Only her disheveled hair and too wide eyes gave her away.

            But something about the mirror was wrong.  There was a darkness in it, as if a flaw had smeared the glass.  Curious, Evelina moved forward, pausing at the counter.  She raised a hand to the mirror, fingertips touching lightly against the cool glass.

            The lights flickered.

            A fresh chill worked into the air.  Evelina huddled into herself, eyes widening.  She stared at herself in the mirror, watching the lights begin to flicker wildly in the glass.  She thought wildly for a moment that her reflection changed in the dark seconds, but that was impossible-

            The lights went out, and the room turned dark.  Evelina gasped, eyes blinking over and over again in the dark.  She stared at the mirror, only able to make out her shape.

            Her reflection raised a hand.

            Evelina breathed out a high sound, watching the hand press flat against the inside of the mirror.  It was too large a hand, too large an arm.  The shape was too large, towering over her.  Evelina stumbled backwards, clutching the rose tighter.

            The hand _lunged_ , leaving the confined of the mirror.  Evelina screamed, breathless and high, but it did not stop the hand.  Cold leather caressed her cheek, and she tore herself away with a sob.

            “ _Prove your love to me, my angel.  Give me my rose._ ”

            “I don’t love you,” Evelina whispered into the dark.  “I don’t, oh God I don’t!  I’m not your anything, I’m not Christine Daae, can’t you see that?”

            The hand grabbed her chin in a vice.  “ _None of your excuses, little viper!_ ” the voice hissed.  “ _My rose!_ ”

            Evelina thrust the bleak flower up.  The petals brushed over the gloved hand, kissed briefly against her cheek.  Another hand closed over hers, around the rose.  She released the stem as soon as the hand pulled at it.

            The hand on her jaw loosened, slid easily over to cradle her cheek.  “ _Perfect, my love.  But this is only the first step.  Let me show you how it all began . . ._ ”

            And darkness crashed around her.

***

            _A towering mirror, a young girl kneeling before it, a dark figure just visible through the glass.  Songs of aching beauty shivered along the glass.  Praises from the angel fell on the girl’s ears, chasing out the darkness from her world._

_A haughty diva storming from the opera, insulted one time too many to deal with the production.  A woman pulling the girl forward, insisting she could sing it, sirs, you won’t be disappointed.  Doubts.  But the girl can, Evelina knows it; she recognizes that face from her earliest memories._

_Christine can sing it, and sing she does, triumphing at the performance with a voice of an angel.  Her audience is captivated, and over all there is a hot pride.  The angel is pleased with her.  Her reward is to enter his domain, a world of darkness and candlelight, a kingdom of music.  All bows to the angel, and the angel bows to her, and she is a goddess of this world._

_But this world is not perfect.  The angel is betrayed by the curiosity of a viper, but it is the angel who stings.  Christine weeps when she is taken from that beautiful world.  The angel is displeased, but he cannot be angry at her.  She meant him no harm._

_The managers, though; the managers mean him harm, and he must teach them a lesson.  First the matter of his salary.  He takes it by force, timing it so that the managers see him; they will know he is no mere Opera Ghost, no phantom.  He is a man, flesh and blood and bone, and he will not be denied._

_If they fail to listen to his rules, then they shall have an even harder lesson._

***

            Evelina sucked in a deep, loud breath, bolting to sit up from the floor.  Her eyes flew about the room, finding the electric lights had returned to full and steady brightness.  The rose was gone, and she was lying on the floor.

            Evelina stood slowly, wincing at the ache in her hip from her earlier fall.  Her wince deepened to a grimace as a wave of dizziness swept over her, and she dropped her hands to the counter before her.

            Glass crunched beneath her palms.

            Evelina jerked her hands up, forcing her eyes open.  Countless shards of glass were scattered about, gleaming in the lamplight.  She raised her eyes, staring silently at the mirror.  It was a mirror no more; now it was an empty frame, with a hole in the wall behind it.

            Evelina swallowed, her throat making a hollow clicking sound.  Her head pounded more insistently, forcing her eyes to close.  She needed water, desperately.  With blind hope, she fumbled about until she found the faucet, and turned the handle.  A gurgling sounded, and then a gush of water shot out into the sink.

            Evelina cracked her eyes open, staring in surprise at the flow of water.  Her thirst drove her forward, and she leaned over the sink, cupping her hands in the icy flow.  She raised her hands hurriedly to her lips, slurping up the water in a most unladylike fashion.  The water flowed down her throat like a blessing.

            She drank for a moment, forcing herself to go slow.  The water hit her stomach hard, almost enough to make her nauseous.

            “ _Christine_.”

            The voice was less startling this time.  Evelina jerked her head up, but she did not feel a wild rush of fear.  Her hand trembled only faintly as she turned off the water.  Her mother had said the name of her teacher, if only she could remember.

            “Erik?”

            Evelina cringed, a palpable sense of pleasure flooding the air with a ghostly hum.  “ _You remember._ ”

            “What do you want from me?”

            “ _My next rose, Christine.  You’ll find it beneath the stage._ ”

            Evelina waited a moment, expecting some dark or cryptic continuation.  But the phantom had gone silent.  No tormenting, no mocking.  Just instructions.  Evelina shook her head.  The man – for surely he had to be a man, regardless of the strange phenomena around him – was a mystery.

            Careful of the glass, she boosted herself up onto the counter, and climbed through to the lower levels of the opera house.


	5. V

            She flew for only a moment before landing with a jolt that ran up to her knees.  The hollow _thump_ of her shoes against wood echoed through the small space.  Evelina looked about, feeling a slow uncurling of disgust bloom in her breast.

            The room had clearly been built with the intention of spying into the powder room.  A desk was pressed flush against the wall, a stool tucked beneath it; sitting at it would provide a perfect view over the sink, and likely down quite a few necklines.  A rough bookshelf was against the other wall; on its shelves and on the desk were a scattering of boudoir cards.  Evelina picked up a few on the desk and turned them over.  There was no surprise when she saw the pin-up images.  A glance below the small table showed a scattering of empty bottles; Evelina bent to pick one up but recoiled at the lingering smell of alcohol.  Evelina felt confident in saying the room had been the hiding place of a Peeping-Tom.

            She glanced back briefly through the powder room, feeling a shudder work through her body at the idea.  Such disgusting behavior!

            Still, Evelina couldn’t quite pull away.  She worked through the stacks of cards, wondering if there were any tidbits of information to be found.  To her surprise, she pulled out a stack of old, yellowed newspaper clippings.  She paged through them briefly, pausing at one morbid headline: “Paris Opera House Chandelier Falls; Many Injured, One Dead”.  She continued on, finding at the bottom a small book.  She flipped it open, seeing a name on the back cover; a Joseph Buquet.  Perhaps the Peeping-Tom?

            She opened the journal and began skimming the passages.  Most were entries about the workings of the opera house, recording what was in working order, what needed repaired or replaced.  Slowly, she gathered that he had been the head stagehand.  He also seemed to be a bit of a gambler and drinker, and a smoker, given his personal notes.

            Most interesting were the entries about the “ghost”.  These Evelina read in full.  Most were a compiling of rumors and stories from other opera employees.  The Opera Ghost, the Phantom, O.G.; he had various names.  Buquet had listed that the ghost demanded a salary of the managers, and reserved the fifth box for his viewing pleasure.  Madame Giry was rumored to be in contact with the mysterious being, as she cared for his box as well as overseeing the ballet dancers.  The ballerinas were often plagued by the ghost’s pranks, and the younger ones were particularly susceptible to being spooked.  There was also a reference to “the Persian”; the man was mentioned off hand in a few instances.  He was apparently a patron of the opera, but his name was never mentioned.  Buquet seemed to think he had some connection to the ghost as well.

            The writings turned more disturbing the deeper Evelina went.  The ghost seemed to grow into an obsession of Buquet’s after an entry that mentioned a dark figure that ran away from him in the understage.  Buquet had a few other near-sightings of the strange figure and grew convinced that the opera ghost was just a man.  The passages continued, and Evelina could see the beginnings of a risky plan forming.

            Evelina paused on a page, staring at the first line: I saw him.  Slowly, she began to read.

            _I saw him.  The ghost is just a man.  He is tall and wears a black outfit.  On his face is a mask, covering brow to chin and with only holes for his eyes.  He stared at me, and I could feel his anger, his hatred.  I am afraid, but I must continue.  He cannot terrorize this place any longer._

            After that, the book was filled only with elaborations for a plan to expose the opera ghost.  But after that, there was nothing.  Evelina set the book back down with a frown.  What had happened to the man?  His plan must have failed, otherwise why would her parents think of the opera so badly?  Unless this was all after they had escaped.  But a quick glance at the dates on Buquet’s entries proved it was in the right time for her mother to have been singing at the opera, perhaps even a bit before her rise to fame.

            “ _Christine_.”

            Evelina jumped at the caress of the voice, startled from her thoughts.  Buquet’s book dropped from her hand.  She hesitated, but did not pick it up again.  She had learned all she could from its contents.

            “ _Christine_.”

            She wished desperately that her captor’s voice was an ugly thing.  It would be so easy to hate him thoroughly if it were.  Instead his voice was as fine as any gem, a low roll of thunder.  Evelina could understand too easily how her mother could have mistaken the faceless voice for an angel.

            The voice had come from further below, and Evelina could see a ladder that led up into the small space.  She approached it hesitantly, peering down into the gloom below.  Though the lower level was lit, the lack of any windows and fewer lights made the space seem much more sinister.

            But what if there was an exit?  And even if there weren’t, what else could she do but move forward?  There was no escape from the rooms she had been in earlier, no way to contact that outside world, no food.  At least moving forward, she could find the next rose and hopefully appease her captor.  And perhaps, most importantly, illumine him to the truth.

            Evelina moved down the ladder, finally stepping off into the dimmer bowels of the building.  She stared up into the light for a lingering moment before turning away to face the dark.

            Her breath caught in surprise.  The space was, of all things, a massive storage space of props.  Some were massive, monstrous constructs that were as tall as the ceiling.  Others were small, little trinkets to be held and flourished by performers.  Paintings and posters loomed among the other relics.

            Perhaps in the open, in the light, it would be beautiful and interesting.  In the dim space, Evelina felt that everything was staring at her.  Stalking her.  Preparing to spring, to tear her to shreds.

            Her breath trembled, and it spread into a shiver that worked through her whole body.  Nothing down here was alive; all of it was wood or fabric or metal.  Nothing would hurt her.

            She had to be in the understage, she realized.  This had been Buquet’s territory – and apparently the ghost’s as well.

            “ _My territory_ ,” Erik’s voice came.  Evelina cringed at the mocking tone the voice carried.  “ _Ah, but the stagehand was a fool, my love!  He thought he could capture me.  Such curiosity and pride would be his undoing.  Didn’t you wonder what happened to Buquet?_ ”

            Evelina did not reply.  Her only interest was in finding the next rose.  Why she still did not understand.  What good did this man have for a colorless flower?  What was the point?  What did he hope to accomplish in locking her away in the shell of the opera house?

            A shell was all the opera house was.  It had burnt in a fire, that much Evelina’s parents had told her.  The opera had been replaced with a with a perfect replica in a better location, and the old shell had been left alone.  It was a black beast skulking in the city.  Evelina had never been near it, though she and her parents frequented the new opera quite regularly.  Her mother even reprised her role of prima donna in temporary spells.  The Palais Garnier was a magical place and Evelina adored it thoroughly.

            But this shell, this place . . . Evelina loathed it with all of her being.

            Her conviction to escape strengthening, Evelina moved forward into the understage.  She passed by a room brimming with even more props and costumes, but ignored it.  She had seen enough horrors in this place to be wary of everything around her.

            Her steps on the wood floor were far more muffled, reduced to a quiet _thud-thud-thud_.  She could detect the quiet squeaks and scuttles of mice, or perhaps they were rats; either way, she hoped they would avoid her.  As she went deeper into the understage, she began to pass beneath red curtains.  They were draped off the ceiling in heavy folds.  Perhaps once the effect had been pretty and vibrant, but now, with moth eaten edges and at least two decades of dust, they resembled oversized spider webs.

            The hall opened into a vast space.  More props were scattered about, though there were far fewer now.  Straight across, the hall continued – perhaps towards lifts to the stage?  To Evelina’s left was a closed door.  She approached it quickly.  Evelina had to tip her head back to read the words inscribed above it.

            “Orchestra Pit,” she read aloud.  Evelina felt certain that Erik would be somewhere behind the door.  It was all too ironic for the Angel of Music to dwell among the seat of music in the opera.

            She closed her hand on the door handle and twisted.  But there was no turn.  Evelina gritted her teeth, trying again with more force.  Still the door didn’t budge.  Anger welled up in her, and before she could consider the point of her gesture, she slammed the palm of her hand against the door.

            “Why?!” she shouted out.  “Why do you do this?  What’s the point?!  You already have me trapped!  Why can’t you make getting your damned roses easier?!”

            A roll of laughter was all that answered her outburst.  Evelina seethed silently, her hands curled into violent fists that trembled at her sides.  Another key; she needed yet another key, and she had no idea where one would be hidden in such a cluttered place.  Angry and frustrated, she turned away and began to walk back the way she had come.

            The door to the orchestra pit gave a soft _click_ and swung open with a low groan.

            Evelina froze, her skirt swaying around her legs.  For a moment, she did not dare to turn around.  It simply couldn’t be; surely he would not . . .

            Evelina whirled about.  The door was open, a small stream of light spilling through.  But as she watched, the light changed, darkened.  It was like the powder room all over again.  Then the black fog that had accompanied her captor on his first appearance trickled out of the crack.

            Evelina refused to cringe or whimper.  It was hard to walk steady, but she forced herself to approach the door.  Her hands flattened against the wood.  The texture under her fingers was a distraction from the chill seeping from the room.  She pushed, fighting against the heavy door that gave with painful slowness.

            The orchestra pit was darker than she had expected.  Two lamps glowed in the dark, but the darkness nearly swallowed them whole.  Their light barely reached into the room, leaving its exact shape and contents a mystery to Evelina.  All they revealed was the wall of the stage they were mounted on, and the mirror hung between them.

            The mirror was a beautiful thing, a flawless glass in an elaborate, gilt frame.  The weak lamplight gleamed on the intricate detailing of the frame.  Evelina would have expected such a beautiful thing to be in a chateau like her own home, not a desecrated opera house.

            But it was not perfect, and it had its contents to thank for that.  The darkness that choked the room seemed to come out of the mirror.  Evelina could see unnatural tendrils of dark shadow seeping out from around the frame.  The glass itself was dark, but in it, she could see him.  He was as she had seen him before; dressed in black with the white mask that hid all of his face.  His head was turned towards her; Evelina knew he was staring at her.

            Evelina stole herself before crossing the dark room.  She felt vulnerable, entirely at his mercy.  Darkness was his domain; Evelina belonged to the light.  How could she hope to survive in his darkness?

            She trembled before the mirror, feeling the chill sinking into her very bones.  Erik’s reflection regarded her as Evelina tried to stare back.

            “ _You have far to go, my dear,_ ” he spoke.  The effect was eerie; with his mouth hidden, his voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.  “ _Prove your devotion to me, my angel; bring my rose._ ”

            Evelina bowed her head, as much in inability to continue looking at him as to show her understanding.  Her gaze, fixed upon the floor, followed as the darkness recoiled from the room and was seemingly pulled into the mirror.  Only when the light had returned to being golden did Evelina lift her head again.

            She screamed, staggering backwards; it was too easy to trip and collapse in a heap in one of the orchestra chairs.  Her whole body trembled as she stared at the mirror still.

            Erik was still in the mirror.  The darkness roiled around the frame like a chaotic ocean.  Behind his mask, his eyes were narrowed to dark slits.

            “ _Why do you scream, Christine?  I bring you no harm._ ”  There was something in his voice that sounded _petulant_ , like he was nothing more than a wounded child.

            Evelina didn’t care if he outright pouted.  She didn’t care about him at all.

            “You frightened me, that’s why!” she spat back.  “You’re still here!”

            “ _Where else would I be?  I wait on you, my dear; I should be somewhere you can find me for whenever you need me_.”

            “Need you,” Evelina sneered.  She stood, chin lifting haughtily.  “I never need you, Erik.  I can handle this on my own.”

            The mirror shivered, a faintly audible rattle.  Erik remained still within it, but Evelina could feel the anger seething below his calm demeanor.

            “ _You speak far too soon, Christine.  You know nothing of what I have prepared for you.  There is more to come._ ”

            “More indeed.  It will never end.  You’ve trapped me, a bird in a cage, an insect in a jar.  Something to stare at and play with.”

            Erik shrugged at that remark.  “ _No; rather, I am returning you to me, to my side, where you belong.  You should never have left me.  Fate has bound you and I for eternity._ ”

            Evelina shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself in a vain hope of comfort.  Her stomach felt hollow, and a dizzying headache was rising in her.  The spell of his voice made it only worse.  Bound for eternity, oh God how she hoped he was wrong.

            Evelina turned away and shambled back to the door to the understage.  Just before she stepped through the doorway, Erik laughed once more.  Unlike his reserved laughter, this time it burst forth as if uncontrolled, loud and high; there was true humor in him.  Evelina froze, chilled by the manic quality the sound.

            “ _Buquet shall be of some use yet, my love!  You may find him here, under the stage; our hunting ground, his and mine.  Foolish man, he should never have interfered with me!  Ghosts are far harder to kill then men._ ”

            Trembling and full of dread, Evelina staggered out of the orchestra pit.  Erik’s laughter only followed her as she continued deeper under the stage.


	6. VI

            The silence was only occupied by Evelina’s breathing and the step of her feet.  Erik’s laughter had died off as swiftly as it began.  In the aftermath, the understage was even quieter than before.  The silence made Evelina’s skin prickle.

            She had no choice but to go forward.  Escape did not lie behind her, and refusing to do anything would earn nothing but the self-proclaimed ghost’s wrath.  So she pressed forward, delving deeper through the belly of the burnt out opera house.  The same dusty and moth-eaten red curtains hung overhead.  The occasional light barely filled the gloom around her.  Like the rest of the building, a chill hung in the air; not enough to make Evelina overly cold, but just enough to be uncomfortable.  She shuddered, arms tight around herself as if her own touch could ward off the gloom and cold.

            A new hallway opened before her.  Evelina first noticed the elevator.  It was an old thing.  Even looking at it horrified her.  It could lift her up, though, out of this dark, dank place.  Or it would, if it weren’t shut by a large padlock.

            “Another key I’ll have to find,” she muttered under her breath.  Her eyes befell the posed statue beside the elevator.  It was a handsome enough thing, styled to be a man in old clothing; medieval or Renaissance she would guess.  His foot was planted on something that resembled a grave, one hand uplifted.  She eyed the creation warily.  Would it too move for her when the time was right?  Would it still horrify her to see?

            Evelina turned away from the statue and the elevator.  For the time being, they were both useless to her.

            The hallway extended further, and Evelina hastened down it.  It was not a long walk to reach the end.  It was a large, spacious room, round in shape.  Like the rest of the understage, the ceiling was high above, allowing room for larger props.  At the far end were a series of compartments, currently empty; stage lifts, she theorized, though she had never personally seen any.  They were large and spacious, with plenty enough room for a person, even.  Such contraptions could be used to lift props, but also individuals if there were need of a trick entrance.  Off from the space was a cluster of machinery, from which ropes extended.  The series of ropes and pulleys ascended in a thick web.  In this web hung something large, rectangular; a long box of some kind.

            “Are you familiar with Egypt, my dear?”

            The voice was different from the usual booming, dislocated tones that reached out to her.  This was localized, close by; directly behind her, in fact.  Evelina did not want to turn around.  Yet she had to.  She moved slowly, only to the side, just enough that she could turn her head comfortably and see behind her.

            It was Erik.  Only Erik.  No black fog, no dimmed light.  He stood there, still as a statue, hands folded behind his back.  He looked ethereal in his black robes and full mask.  Evelina could understand why the people of the opera had thought him a ghost.

            “I take it from your silence that you are not.”  His voice had quickened some.  Evelina grimaced.  It would not do to anger him.

            “No,” she replied.  “I’m not very familiar with the country or their culture.  Why?”

            Erik paced forward.  In his long raiment, he seemed to glide.  Evelina could just glimpse that beneath the strange robes he wore a suit of equally black material.  She shrank back from him, but still he came on.

            “The Egyptian people would bury their dead with great ceremony,” he spoke, still walking in his slow gait.  “Removal of the organs, embalming the body, magic spells.  They were buried with a variety of things, all believed to be needed in the afterlife.  But perhaps most interesting are the sarcophagi.  Of course these vary based on a person’s status, but the pharaohs were quite elaborate.  Painted in their likeness, even.  A sarcophagus is a beautiful thing, their final and eternal berth.”  Erik stopped, and so Evelina stopped, shadowed by the hanging box.  She could see Erik’s eyes narrowing at her.

            “Now that you’ve wed the Vicomte,” he hissed, “your sarcophagus would be a beautiful thing.  Unfortunately, Buquet’s standing was not so high as yours.  Nonetheless, I gave him something charming to rest in.”

            Evelina’s mouth ran as dry as the Egyptian deserts.  She knew that, beneath the austere mask, Erik was smiling a twisted smile.  He raised his head, looking over Evelina’s head.  Trembling, Evelina could only follow his example and look up, up, up.

            It was not a box that hung above her.  It was stone, not wood, and it was engraved with handsome patterns.  But it was no conventional box.  It was a sarcophagus – and according to Erik, it was occupied.

            Evelina screamed.

***

            Her head pounded as the room swam back into focus.  Evelina looked about, noting her new perspective of the stage lifts.  It took no Sherlock Holmes to devise that she had swooned, overcome by her horror.

            Slowly, aching anew from her fresh collapse, Evelina sat up.  She craned her neck back, looking up at the dangling sarcophagus again.  “Poor man,” she whispered.  Her voice was a dry croak that made her throat ache.

            Buquet would be of use, her captor had said.  And he claimed the corpse of Buquet was in the sarcophagus.  Somehow Evelina would need to lower it.

            She stood up, wincing and hissing as her bruised body protested the movement.  She persisted and managed to limp over to the machinery.  She cared not for the body of it, only for the lever.  She grasped the handle and pulled it down.

            Evelina grunted, trying to pull past the resistance.  It proved too great, and with a frustrated sigh, she gave up.  Frustration rose in her throat and eyes, a harsh pressure that she blinked back.  There had to be some way!  Her eyes scanned the room, desperate for something, anything-

            She landed on a cluster of props.  Evelina felt certain that they hadn’t been there before.

            They were five in total, Egyptian in nature.  One was a gleaming statue of a man with a bird’s head; it was the largest.  Clustered around him were four objects that resembled urns.  The lids were heads: some type of canine, a monkey, bird, and finally a human.

            Meaningless as well.  She scanned the room further, eyes lighting on a chair that had some covered objects on it.  Evelina moved towards it hesitantly.  She brushed a tentative hand over the fabric covering.  It felt clean.  She pulled it aside quickly.

            Her stomach, once a silent and cavernous pit, seemed to roar at the sight.  A plate with bread and sliced meat and cheese!  And a glass of water!  Evelina choked down a relieved sob.  She would not grant her captor any quarter to believe she was breaking.  But she was not foolish enough to refuse the gift.  Evelina went to her knees and ate quickly.

            The food tasted stale and the water was lukewarm, but it was enough to fill her and quench her thirst.  She sat still a moment longer, simply relieved to no longer be hungry.

            But there was no time to waste.  Every second lingering was a second farther from being free.  The thought drove Evelina forward.  In her haste to eat, she had failed to notice the book lying beneath the plate and glass.  She set both objects aside and picked up the book.  A black silk ribbon stuck out from the book.  Evelina turned to the marked page and read the passage there.

            It was an Egyptian story (she fought not to roll her eyes, and failed) that told of a hawk-headed god named Horus.  He and his four sons went to make offerings to Ra, the sun god.  The passage listed their order and their offerings.  Animal heads they offered.  A few glances between the book and the props revealed that it was the same animals.

            “If I put them in the right order,” Evelina said to herself, “then they should lift.  And the . . .  And it will come down.”

            Evelina brought the book with her and set it next to the props.  She looked at the book a moment before going to the Horus figure.  When she put her hands under its arms and lifted, she was surprised at how light it was.  It proved easy to carry across to the center lift.

            The rest were more difficult to place.  The text was somewhat confusing on who stood exactly where.  Evelina tried one combination after another, pulling the lever angrily each time.  The lifts would start to rise . . . then fall again.  It took impossible effort to keep her anger at bay, but somehow she managed.

            After many trials and consultations with the text, Evelina managed on the right order: baboon, human, Horus, bird, and jackal.  A final hard yank of the lever had the lifts rising steadily and the sarcophagus sinking.  The lifts stopped when the sarcophagus touched the ground with a soft _thump_.

            It was a thing of terrible beauty.  The stone was light, allowing the ornate carvings to be easily seen.  None of them made sense to Evelina.  Looking at the thing filled her with such horror that her stomach threatened to expel her makeshift meal.  She had no choice but to approach it.

            Her whole body trembled as she crossed to the sarcophagus.  Her breathing was loud and hysteric, but she could not manage to calm herself.  How could she be calm?  There was a rotting corpse just beside her!

            The lid of the sarcophagus was more plain than its sides.  However, in its center was an image.  Large rays seeped out from a circle.  The circle itself was lined in metal engraved with hieroglyphics.  Within that was more ornate masonry and finally a metal disk that depicted the sun and the moon.  Together, the made a serene face.  They mocked Evelina’s horror.

            Her hand trembled as she reached out.  Her nails hooked on the metal edge.  She pulled, but hissed as her grip was lost.  She scrabbled at it again, fumbling for a moment before catching a more sturdy grip.  There was an audible scraping sound as she pulled it away.

            A thick, cloying smell reached out to her.  Evelina gagged, clapping a hand over her mouth and nose.  She set the lid aside carefully, but her eyes were locked on the inside.

            Hands.  Ghastly hands.  Skin withered right to the bone.  Opaque, bluish colored.  Overgrown nails.  Fingers locked around a thorny stem.  A black blossom.  Evelina sobbed, shaking her head.

            “I can’t,” she whispered.  “Oh God, I can’t, I can’t touch him I just _can’t_!”

            And if she didn’t?  If she left the rose behind?  If she walked back to Erik and said to his invisible face that she could not do this?  What would happen then?  She could not say, and she did not dare find out.

            “God forgive me,” she whispered.  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-”

            Her hand descended into the sarcophagus.  Her hand trembled minutely.  Tears stung at her eyes and blurred her vision; she wiped them away harshly.  She had to see.  Otherwise she might directly _touch_ him.

            Her breath hitched and hiccuped from her as she reached down.  Careful, oh so careful, she reached above the withered hands.  She gripped the stem tight.  It felt smooth and hard to her touch.  Carefully, Evelina began to pull.  She was apologizing again, a heated whisper that couldn’t stop.

            There was a crackling sound as the dead fingers gave way.  Evelina gagged, hastily tearing her hand back, the rose trailing after her.  She stumbled back from the sarcophagus with a sob.  Her legs shook violently beneath her, so hard that she wobbled in place.

            A low groan whispered through the air.

            Evelina sobbed again, staggering backwards with the rose clutched to her chest.  She could feel her eyes bugging from their sockets.  She could look nowhere but at the sarcophagus.  “No, please,” she whispered, “please leave me alone, I had to.  Please.”

            The lid of the sarcophagus shifted.  There was a longer, deeper groan, then a sigh; the lid shifted back in place.

            “ _The ghost did it_ ,” a hoarse voice groaned.  “ _The ghost killed me.  All the ghost._ ”

            “No,” Evelina whimpered.  “God, no, please, no!”

            “ _A man.  Not a man anymore.  Ghosts.  Only ghosts here.  Only ghosts except for **you**._ ”

            Evelina jerked back.  A wounded sound tore from her throat.  She had not come willingly!  She would be anywhere else if she could be!

            Bluish fingers curled around the lip of the hole.  Evelina whimpered again, shaking her head.  Buquet couldn’t possibly lift that lid!  It was solid rock!

            Stone grated against stone.  The lid shifted slightly.

            “NO!” Evelina screamed.  “Don’t you _dare_!”

            “ _Only ghosts.  Only ghosts.  Only ghosts!_ ”

            “I’m no ghost!” Evelina shouted.  She ran forward, teeth bared in feral snarl.  The rose fell from her grip; her hands were needed for other things.

            Her body slammed into the side of the sarcophagus, but the impact was not felt.  She lifted the disk she had removed in both hands and lifted it high overhead.

            For a moment she could only stare at the ghastly fingers curled over the rim.  As she watched, they began to strain again.  No!  Buquet would not leave his place!

            Evelina screamed as she brought the stone disk hurtling down.  She slammed it against the brittle fingers.  The sound of skin and bone breaking made her feel weak; but it was nothing compared to the howling of whatever demon or monster lay inside.  The hands fell away, back into the shadows of the sarcophagus.  Evelina glimpsed a flash of a writhing body before she slammed the plate home.  It clicked into place audibly.

            The shrieking, muffled by the closed sarcophagus, trailed off into whimpers, then moans, then silence.  Evelina stood before her work, breathing hard, skin damp with sweat.  She stared at the fingertips that had been left outside.  The cloying death-scent lingered on them.

            The trembling resumed until her whole body shivered wildly.  Evelina turned and stumbled away, pausing only long enough to retrieve the rose.  Thorns pricked her hand, but she ignored the pain.  It was nothing compared to the horror she had just experienced.

            Evelina retreated back the way she had come, back through the understage.  Tears rolled freely from her eyes as she walked.  She did not bother to check them.  How else could she express her terror?  She was locked in Hell, surely.  What other place could she be in?

            She staggered into the orchestra pit, weak and pale.  She crept up to the mirror.  Her eyes stared blankly at the dark glass, seeing yet not seeing.  The monster’s screams of pain still echoed in her mind.

            “ _I trust Buquet was accommodating._ ”

            Evelina snapped free of her fog.  Her hands curled into fists as rage welled up in her.  “Accommodating,” she spat back.  “He tried to climb out!  He was furious!”

            The dark figure sighed and shook his head.  “ _He always did have a temper . . ._ ”

            Evelina thrust the rose towards the mirror.  “Take this _thing_ and let’s be done with it.  I’m tired of your games.”

            His gloved slapped over hers suddenly.  Erik’s grip was tight, unforgiving.  His eyes were green chips behind his mask.  “ _So willful, my love,_ ” he hissed, serpentine.  “ _The Vicomte has let you grow into a wild rose._ ”

            Evelina lifted her chin, returning his imperious look with her own.  “My father would be proud,” she replied, voice gone cold.

            Erik wrenched the rose from her grip.  The thorns dragged over her skin; Evelina refused to give voice to any pain.  Her captor seemed to sink deeper into the mirror, dark fog pulsing out from around the mirror.

            “ _What happened to Joseph was a necessity,_ ” Erik said.  “ _He had to die for us . . ._ ”

***

            _Out of the darkness appears a man.  Stout and strong, middle aged, killing himself with the cigar between his teeth and the liquor in his belly.  Joseph Buquet, delving into the cellars to pursue the “opera ghost” and reveal him as a man.  He would be arrested and the opera would be at peace._

_Foolish hope.  Doesn’t he know what happens to the mouse who enters the snake’s den?_

_The trail of clues leading him on is convenient – too convenient.  Buquet follows nonetheless, deep into the Phantom’s territory.  Near the backdrops he finds what he is searching for: a trick door in the floor that leads to a secret stairway.  Descent will lead right into the whatever dank hold the ghost calls his home._

_He is doomed._

_Before he can rise and go find a party to raid the place, the ghost is on him.  Buquet is strong, but so is the Opera Ghost.  They battle in the dark.  The rope coils around Buquet’s neck and pulls taut.  The man thrashes beneath his prey, staring at the unfeeling white mask, at the emerald eyes burning with hate.  It is his last vision before he dies._

_He is strung up among the scenes, left to be found._

_The mouse that enters the snake’s den will die._

***

            Evelina woke with a start.  Another swoon, much like after the first rose.  But there is no thirst or hunger plaguing her this time.

            She sat up on the stone stairs, aware of glass crunching all around her.  The mirror shattered again as well.  Evelina examined her hands, checking for any stray shards.  None; only scratches from the rose.

            Evelina lifted her head.  Her eyes froze at the mirror – or at the place it had been.

            The frame still hung on the wall.  Glass stuck to its edges still.  But there was no chamber behind it, no place at all for anyone to hide.  The wall was solid concrete.  Evelina scrambled to her feet, slapping her palms against the hard surface, dragging her fingertips about in search of cracks or triggers that could reveal a trap door.

            Nothing.

            “Impossible,” she whispered to herself.  “How could he . . . ?”

            _Only g_ _hosts here.  Only ghosts except for you._

            Evelina covered her mouth with both hands.  Her eyes widened, staring blindly ahead of her.

            Only ghosts – except for her.


	7. VII

            The thought was impossible, yet it explained so much.  The way he appeared from nowhere in a black fog,  The disembodied voice coming from everywhere and nowhere.  How he followed her through the building, how he knew what she had done and where she had been.

            The way he appeared in a mirror against a wall and disappeared after.

            Of course, the idea didn’t leave Evelina feeling particularly stable.  On the contrary, as she paced back and forth in front of the rickety looking elevator, she wondered if she was going mad.

            If Erik was really a ghost, how had he taken the roses from her hands?  The roses were certainly real and physical; there were still thin smears of blood on her fingertips and palms from where the thorns had pricked her skin.  Ghosts were incorporeal.  He should not have been able to touch something solid.

            _But how was he in the mirror?_

            Evelina pressed her fingers over her eyes until she saw spots.  Her hands dropped back to her sides.  She sighed, long and deep.  “I am not insane,” she said to herself.  “He can’t be a ghost.  It just isn’t _possible_.  He just can’t be!”

            “ _Ah – To be or not to be, that is the question._ ”

            Evelina jerked to the side, away from the origin of the tinny voice that echoed in the understage.  Her wide eyes found the statue of the Renaissance man.  As she watched, he waved his hand, eyes moving about the room.  A solid thing, moving; Erik and his puppets again!

            “ _Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,_ ” the thing continued, “ _or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them.  To die, to sleep – no more – and by a sleep to say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.  To die, to sleep – to sleep – perchance to dream; ay, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come-_ ”

            “Enough of _Hamlet_ ’s soliloquy!” Evelina snapped.

            The statue fell silent suddenly.  The colorless eyes turned to her.  He was so pale – made of stone, perhaps even marble.  His mouth seemed to pout.  “ _Do you not like Shakespeare_?”

            “Quite the contrary, but I haven’t time for this!  I need a key to the elevator; do you have it by chance?”

            “ _Ah – the key for Miss Daae!  Though I suppose Madame de Chagny is more appropriate._ ”

            Evelina grit her teeth for a moment before spitting out her reply.  “Call me whatever you like.  May I have the key please?”

            With a flourish of its hand, the statue – which it couldn’t be that really, not with such fluid movement – produced a key.  Evelina took it with haste and a quick word of thanks.  In reply, the thing simply launched back into the midst of Hamlet’s soliloquy.

            The key slipped into the lock and turned with ease.  The lock and chain fell from the elevator.  The wheel at its side began to turn, and the metal gate rose swiftly.  It reached its height and, with a great _clang!_ , stopped.  The elevator was made of wood and looked thoroughly unsafe.

            The tinny voice that the strange puppet spoke it continued on, its cadence perfect and lulling.  Evelina wanted to whirl and scream at it to shut up.  She wanted to turn and run back to the foyer, to pound her fists on the door until it opened and spit her back into reality, out of this unending nightmare.  She wanted to escape Erik, be him a ghost or a man or something inbetween.  She wanted to be home, with her parents, warm and safe.

            She stepped into the elevator.

            The walls had posters plastered on all sides.  Dusty red curtains draped off the roof, just like the understage.  Boxes full of costume pieces lined the walls, some overflowing to reveal headdresses, wigs, instruments, large silky fans, and other handheld items.  A sea of detritus from a time forgotten.

            There was a lever on the opposite side, pulled down.  Evelina went to it.  The metal was cold under her touch.  Evelina shivered as she pulled it up.

            The elevator shuddered and lurched, then slowly began to rise.  The puppet’s voice disappeared suddenly, but when Evelina turned to look out the door, it was too late; she was already too far above to see if he had fallen still again.

            The squeak and rattle of her ascent made Evelina anxious.  To soothe herself, she examined the posters surrounding her.  The productions all starred her mother in some role.  Christine Daae, the Swedish songbird, daughter of a dead violinist, rising starlet of the Paris opera.  How many of the shows had her father come to see?

            The elevator lurched to a stop, the lights flickering a moment.  The ragged door rolled up on its own.  Evelina launched herself free, shuddering.  “I hope I never have to ride that again,” she muttered darkly.

            She stood in a sort of parlor.  A pretty settee sat across from a mirror.  The settee was dusty, but whole; the mirror had a crack in the bottom corner.  A ratty rug led the way further down the hall.  Evelina followed it; what else could she do?

            The hall opened into a cluttered room.  Evelina first noticed the costumes and bolts of fabric scattered around.  All women’s costumes.  The area must have been where the singers and dancers prepared for the shows.  Besides the costumes, materials, and notes scattered about, there were three doorways.  The one straight ahead opened into another hall, though where it went she could not see.  To her left was another open room; Evelina could see a long counter and mirror.  She did not want to enter that room.  She had no doubt that Erik was in there waiting for her.

            To her right was the last doorway, but it was closed.  The door was surprisingly decorated.  A thing of beauty in a far more drab space.  Evelina approached it, tracing the gilt decorations.  A name plaque gleamed high on the door.  The curling script read Christine Daae.

            “Her dressing room,” Evelina softly.  She traced the name slowly.  The ache of missing her parents deepened to something near agony.  She clamped her eyes shut against stinging tears.

            _Christine_.

            Evelina spun around, startled by the whisper of Erik’s voice, there but not all at once.  The doorway to the mirrored room was full of darkness.  Evelina did not want to go to him.  He was a ghost.  He was a man.

            He was a monster.

            But she was drawn forward against her will, almost as if he somehow pulled her with his black fog.  Evelina could not run away.  She could only go forward.

            The purple and blue lighting illuminated the room just enough to see Erik in the mirror, appearing only from the waist up.  He looked the same as always; black robes, black hood, white mask that hid all but his eyes, sharp and predatory that they were.

            “ _Christine_ ,” he purred in welcome.  “ _I remember when you would sit here, or in your dressing room, praying to perform well so your angel would not forsake you.  Did God know that you would forsake me?  You were courageous enough to parade on the stage, but not enough to love me.  But you can prove your courage again!  Bring me my next rose._ ”

            Rage burned in her chest.  Did he dare to imply her mother was a coward; that she herself was a coward?! “As if this will be any more terrifying than facing a corpse!” Evelina shouted.  “I tore your ugly rose from his dead hands, for you!  I’m no coward, phantom!”

            The darkness drew in, abandoning the room to lock itself behind the mirror’s glass instead.  The fog coalesced into strange shapes around Erik.  He only looked at her in silence, impossible to read in his ghastly mask.

            Angered, Evelina spun away and stormed from the room.  She fled down the hall, rage making her steps loud.  How _dare_ he imply she had no courage!  She had braved his puzzles and his horrors, and any reluctance was bred only from her desire to be out of her situation!  The nerve of him!

            The hall opened to another decrepit room.  Unlike the main floor of the opera house, this floor was dingy and undecorated.  Any furniture was falling apart.  Trash littered the floor.  A cold breeze swept through the room, coming from the stairway that must have opened to the roof.  Evelina could see the pale light of the moon and stars spilling down into the artificial gold of the interior.

            Night now.  It had been day when Evelina was on the main floor.  Judging time had been impossible in the understage, especially when she had passed out twice, but it must have been hours – or worse.  Had another day passed?  Evelina fretted again over how long she had been captive.  She couldn’t keep track.

            Was she going insane after all?  Not from being harassed by a possible ghost, but instead by the impossibility of grasping the passage of time?

            Evelina breathed out a loud sigh.  She was alive, and relatively well.  As long as those things held true, she could still find a way to escape.

            Light glinted off something to her right.  Evelina turned her head, sweeping her gaze over a wall of bottles.  An apothecary, it seemed; likely to provide remedies for colds and coughs and sore throats so the performers could still take the stage.  But there was something else, something lying on the counter.

            Evelina’s eyes widened.  She moved forward cautiously, stopping only a step away.  Her eyes were riveted on the cold metal of a dagger.

            It was an odd shaped thing.  The blade itself curved back and forth in serpentine fashion.  The hilt was fashioned as a cobra’s head, hood outspread, complete with etched in scales, pointed fangs, and glinting eyes.  They were red, and appeared to be gemstones; rubies, perhaps.  A ceremonial and artistic thing.

            Evelina picked the dagger up.  It felt odd in her hand, but a few swipes and stabs proved it to able to wield.  She slipped the tip of a finger against the blade and hissed at the sting.  Blood welled up in the cut.  She felt no disappointment.  Not when she had found a weapon.

            _Could you really use something like this?_

            Evelina feared she would answer that question the hard way.


	8. VIII

            The dagger fit awkward in her hand.  The handle was small, just below the flared hood of the cobra, just above the razor-sharp edges of the blade.  Her hand fit it, barely.  But a few swipes through the air proved it would serve well enough in an emergency.  She clung to the blade as she slowly walked up the metal stairs; to the rooftop, she assumed.

            She had retreated to the actor’s alley again, just long enough to find something to wear to keep warm.  The rooms were all cold so far, chilled by the wintry drafts swirling down the metal stairs.

            It had been easy to find a makeshift cape in the drifts of fabrics and costumes.  She had cut up a bolt of heavy velvet, enough to wrap around herself twice, and pinned it shut with few needles.  It certainly aided in keeping the chill off her arms.  Her legs were frigid, but she saw no way around that.

            Back at the apothecary, Evelina stared at the metal steps.  They spiraled upward, and pale light filtered down through them.  They looked lovely.  But nothing was truly lovely in the damned opera house.

            Evelina mounted the stairs.  Her shoes clattered on the metal, and the railing was freezing under her hand.  She shivered under her velvet draping and walked faster.  She had to see if there was anything of use on the rooftop; if there was not, she still wanted a view of the outside world, to ensure herself it was truly there, that she was not trapped in some twisted reality or dark dreamscape.  If Paris was spread out like a gem beneath her, then this had to be reality.

            _And if this is reality, Erik must be a man_.

            The sky opened above her.  Evelina gasped, almost choking on the freezing cold air.  The freshness and chill burned her lungs in the most incredible way.  The stars glittered above her like diamonds in a velvet setting.  And below her sprawled Paris, the street lights glimmering far away.  Everything was dusted in a blanket of snow, and more was falling from the sky.

            Tears stung her eyes and a choked sound seeped from between her lips.  Evelina trembled, clutching the dagger in her fist.  She imagined she could see the family chateau outside of the city, though she knew that was impossible.  The thought made her chest ache with a feeling of emptiness.  The pressure in her throat and eyes refused to subside.  Homesickness curled in her body, filling her until she thought she would burst.

            Evelina turned away from the city, looking instead at the rooftop.  Beautiful statues graced the rooftop, depicting various images of Greek mythology.  Apollo with his lyre atop the green dome, the Pegasus statues on either side, gilded figures with wings at the corners.  The rooftop was beautiful, untouched by the blight that had embraced the rest of the building.  If it were not for the cold, she would willingly linger in the open.  The winter chill urged her to hurry, though.

            A quick glance proved nothing of interest, and a more thorough look turned up nothing of use to her.  But there was a note, caught in a snow drift.  Evelina bent and picked it up quickly.  The writing was smudged in some places, ruined by the snow, but there was enough to piece together what the note must have said.

            “ _My dearest, Christine_ ” Evelina read aloud to herself, “ _meet me tonight on_ . . . the roof, I suppose, since that’s where I found this . . . _under the stars_ – definitely the roof, then.  _Something to give you_.  _With all my love_ – _Raoul_!”

            Tears sprang up to her eyes again.  Evelina clutched the note to her breast.  She couldn’t stop a single tear from tracing down her cheek.  The handwriting had struck her as familiar, and now it made sense!

            She looked around the roof again.  Had this been where her father proposed?  It was such a romantic view, with the city sprawled out as a gem below.  She smiled to herself and, on a whim, folded the note and quickly tucked it into her dress, under the strap of her brassiere.  A token of her family.

            A blast of cold air hit her again.  Evelina gasped, huddling under her makeshift cape.  She scampered through the broken doorway and back down the stairs into the belly of the beast.  Uncertain, she paused at the other doorway.  A ruddy glow and draft of warmth greeted her.  It was the only direction she had not gone yet, and so she went forward.

            The passage remained dim for a time, but eventually opened into a large room.  Furnaces and pipes lined the walls and ceilings, and carts of coal were positioned nearby for easy access.  Only one of the furnaces was running.  Evelina stood by it for a moment, shivering as the warmth seeped into her bones.  She wished silently that more of them were running.  The opera house was large and cold, though the chill had come to feel almost normal.

            Thawed again, Evelina readjusted her grip on the dagger before continuing towards the dark hallway extending before her.

            The toe of her shoe caught on something.  Evelina staggered, gasping, catching herself on the wall with her free hand.  She heard the hollow _thump_ of something tipping over, followed by a splash and gurgle of thick liquid.  Evelina spun about, horrified as she saw the cannister of fuel tipped over, and the puddle of it on the ground.

            Her horror dwindled swiftly.  The fuel was far away from the furnaces, and the coal, and the one burning furnace was well contained.  The chances of it spreading were slim to none.  Still, she picked the canister up and set it against the far wall, out of the way.

            As satisfied as she could be, Evelina moved on down the dark, cramped hall.  The cold seeped back into her legs, but beneath her cape, Evelina was relatively comfortable.  Her comfort died when the hall opened again to reveal the channel of a sewer.

            It had been drained, at least, a small relief, but puddled were scattered along the bottom.  The paths on the sides died abruptly, leaving her no other option but to climb down and walk through the muck.  Despairing, Evelina looked down at her shoes.  They had remained in fair shape during her ordeal so far, but this would surely ruin them.

            Like many things in the hellscape she had entered, Evelina had no choice.  A set of makeshift stairs were at her feet, and so Evelina scrambled down them.  She walked as fast as she could, grimacing each time she stepped in a puddle.  The sewer seemed to stretch forever, but eventually she reached its end and clambered free.

            Evelina was intrigued by the room she entered.  An alter stood before her, though it was undecorated with any Christian motifs.  She remembered, briefly, her mother mentioning a chapel in the opera house, where many had gone to pray before performances.  It was there that her mother would light a candle for her father and pray for his soul, and for the guidance of an angel of music.  Christine Daae had received the attention of something far darker, though.

            Perhaps that same chapel was at the top of the small flight of wooden stairs.  There was surely another entrance to it somewhere, but enough of the opera house was in ruins that Evelina was sure she would not be able to reach the same destination with any other path than what was offered to her.  Erik had made sure of that.

            Evelina mounted the stairs, but froze at the top, squinting.  The room was almost entirely dark; only a small amount of pale light spilled down at the far end of the room.  Evelina could just make out the familiar shape of a chancel.  It was indeed the small church in the opera house, but it was too dark to see any of the nave, or even the details of the chancel.  Confused, Evelina went back down the steps, standing by the alter with a frown.  She knew that she had to enter the room, but she would need light first.

            She scuffed one foot, and was greeted with a hollow clatter.  Evelina crouched down with a surprised but pleased hum, grabbing onto the short wooden pole.  One end was wrapped in some kind of fabric.  Her mind skipped back to the spilled fuel.  Surely there had been enough to soak a makeshift torch?

            Evelina scampered back into the sewer and down its filthy, sodden length.  Back at the furnace room, she bent by the fuel she had spilled and pressed the cloth-covered end of the torch into the puddle.  The white fabric darkened as it soaked up a fair portion of the spill.  Evelina stood, returning to the furnace.  She thrust the torch into the blaze, and when she withdrew it a second later, she was satisfied by the flame she carried.  She made her way back with haste, eager to get through the room and be done with whatever the darkness hid.

            The wooden stairs creaked beneath her feet.  Evelina squinted into the dark again, holding the torch high to try and spread its light.  She could see the way down towards the alter, the rows of pews, but little else – but there were lamps, open and waiting for fire.  Surely that was safer than waving a torch about.

            The lamps lined the pews, hanging just low enough that Evelina could reach without stretching too far.  She became engrossed with lighting the torches, an easy and menial task, going back and forth to either side.  So engrossed that Evelina did not see what the light began to reveal until she had reached the chancel and it stood before her directly.

            Evelina stared at the revealed alter.  Her hands turned numb, both torch and dagger falling from her grasp.  The flame guttered out as it struck the ground, but Evelina would not have cared if the church went up in flames.  It should, for the abominations that stood at the alter.

            There were five of them.  Dark, frozen figures, strung up with wire.  Wings sprung from their backs, extended to the full wingspan, towering above the scene.  They wore dark cloaks that covered their faces and bodies, but their hands and arms were revealed as bones.  Evelina’s mind spun helplessly back to her encounter in the managers office, the skeleton in the expensive suit and top hat; then to Buquet, not a skeleton, but a corpse in his sarcophagus.  Would these monstrosities be helpful, or would they want to kill her?  For surely they would move, as so many impossible things had moved in the opera house.  The only question was how.

            “What is this forsaken place?” Evelina whispered to herself.

            Fear curdled in her stomach, but Evelina knew she had to continue forward.  If she stopped now, she may never be free.

            Evelina bent on shaking knees to pick up her dagger.  She pushed the extinguished torch aside; if she needed it, she would retrieve it later.  For now, she needed a free hand to steady herself.

            She felt more secure with the dagger.  If the _things_ turned violent, she could possibly defend herself.  She hoped it would not come to that, but she had to be prepared.

            Evelina crept up the stairs.  She stopped on the other side of the alter, looking at the silent, still figures.  She could just make out the paleness of skulls beneath the hoods.  They were all posed the same: head angled down, one arm outstretched over an empty bowl, the other hand poised above and holding the same serpentine dagger that Evelina clutched.

            All except one.  His hand was empty.  Evelina knew the dagger belonged to him.  She didn’t want to surrender it, her only protection in the Hell she had been trapped in. But a quick glance around proved the only exit was the way she had come, which opened into nothing but more rooms with only one path – the one she was already on.

            She shoved the dagger into the skeletal hand, using her other hand to curl the bones of the fingers around the hilt.  She heard a rattling sound.  Before her eyes, the bones flexed, shifted, took a better grip.

            “ _Thank you_.”

            The voice was not Erik’s voice.  There was no velvet, no music in the sound; no sweet, yet sinister and dark caress of her ears.  The sound was a crackle, a rattle, a clack of teeth.  The skull beneath the hood had spoken, as the Hamlet statue had spoken.

            Evelina whined, the sound thin and airy in her own ears.  For a moment, all of them were still.  And then the one who she had given the dagger raised his blade.  He spoke again, and this time the other figures straightened up, responding with sighs and moans.  And as Evelina watched, the skeleton thrust the knife down into the base of its palm.

            The tip of the blade broke open the bone.  The skeleton shrieked, a black, viscous liquid seeping from the wound and spilling down the stark white of its hand.

            Evelina screamed as well.  She staggered backwards, down the steps, only to collide into something.

            Hands curled sudden and tight around her arms.  Not something; someone, and she was certain she knew who.

            “Watch, Christine,” Erik’s velvet voice whispered in her ear.  He had come out of the mirror again, joining with her.  Tormenting her.  “Watch them with me.”

            Another, seemingly in random order, slashed open the bones of its wrist.  This one did not scream, but it moaned, a sound caught somewhere between pleasure and agony.  The same fluid poured out of its arm.  Evelina whimpered, squirming, trying to pull free of Erik’s hold which only tightened.

            A third skeleton began to scrape the ragged edge of its blade up its arm.  The black blood spilled in a third stream.  A fourth chopped off its entire hand, which fell into the deepening pool in the bowl.  Black blood fountained from its wrist.  It screamed; Evelina joined it.

            “Erik, make them stop!” she cried out, twisting in his hold.  She did not care that her new position pressed her face against the soft fabric of his clothes, that the warmth of a human body radiated against her own.  There was nothing but horror, revulsion, terror; this was as bad as Buquet.  “Please,” she sobbed, “I can’t watch this anymore!”

            “Yes you can,” Erik hissed, shaking her so hard that her head flopped against his chest.  “You can; you will!”

            The last skeleton gave a garbled cry.  Evelina forced herself to watch as it began to stab its own arm, screaming in its rattling voice the whole time.

            Evelina twisted again, shouting wordlessly in protest.  She kicked, thrashed, squirmed, grappled, screamed; anything to get herself to look anywhere else.  Erik snarled and hissed at her, his voice incomprehensible over Evelina’s own shrieking and sobbing.  Tears streaked down her cheeks.  All the skeletons were screaming, their voices taking up a rhythm, a chant.

            “WATCH, CHRISTINE!”  Erik’s voice was a roar, filling the room entirely.  His gloved hand clamped on Evelina’s jaw.  With strength she could not have ever guessed him to possess, he wrenched her head to face forward.  Evelina sobbed, watching as the skeletons stabbed and cute and sawed at their arms over and over, the dark fluid _pouring_ down, filling the bowl, _overflowing_ , spilling across the alter-

            Stone grated; a cold wind tore through the chapel.  The skeletons shrieked a final time, all raised their blades – and froze in place.

            Erik’s hands released her.  Evelina crashed to the ground with a sob, knees giving out without warning.  She lifted her head, sucking in deep breaths to stop her crying.

            Erik stared down at her, unreadable as ever.  Evelina wondered what he saw before him.  She was crumpled, shaking with terror, lank strands of hair stuck to wet cheeks, eyes red and face puffy, chest heaving as she fought to restrain herself.

            “You are frightened,” Erik said softly.

            Evelina barked out a shaky laugh.  “Of course I’m frightened!  That was _horrible_!  Monstrous!”

            Erik turned his masked face away.  His hands flexed at his sides, curling and uncurling from fists.  “I . . . Forgive me, my angel.  I did not . . . think about how it would . . . affect you.”

            “You d-didn’t think how a-a-an-ny of this would _affect_ m-me,” she whispered through hitching gasps.  New tears spilled down her cheeks.  Evelina swiped at them, brushing the hair out of her face.

            A hand fell into her vision.  Evelina looked up, mouth open in surprise.  Erik was bent at the waist, offering his hand to help her up.  Evelina hesitated, but ultimately took his hand.  She did not trust her legs to support her.

            Erik lifted her with a gentleness that did not match the furious strength he had displayed seconds before.  He positioned himself between her and the alter.  Evelina tried to ignore the feeling of gratitude blooming in her chest.  It was only worsened as he straightened her makeshift cape and drew out a handkerchief, seemingly from nowhere, to dry her cheeks.  The back of his fingers brushed across her cheek.  As Evelina caught her breath, she could hear a soft dripping.  She refused to think about what it was.

            “You must continue,” Erik said.  He stepped back from her.  His eyes were twin green fires, burning with a desperate sort of passion.  “You must bring me my last rose.”

            “Why?  Why do you need them?  What is the point of any of this?  Erik, please-”

            “All in time, my angel.  Now go.”

            Erik motioned towards the other side of the chapel.  Evelina looked over, blinking in surprise at the doorway revealed there; a stone door that had pivoted open.

            Evelina turned forward again, but Erik was gone.


	9. IX

            The cold sank its teeth back into Evelina’s skin as she stepped through the secret doorway.  A shiver wracked her frame violently, causing her to wrap her arms close under her velvet cape.  Snow fluttered down, catching on the material and in her hair, and small drifts carpeted the walkway and angelic statues.  At the end of the path was a small building, topped with an angel.  It resembled a crypt, like the ones in the cemetery.  The beauty of it made Evelina pause, ignoring the cold.  She could forget for a moment that she was being terrified by a monster, that she was a prisoner.  It was winter, and she was with her parents, visiting her grandfather’s grave as they did every year to leave flowers.  Mother would weep, just a bit, but Papa would embrace her, and Evelina would join them, and all would be well.

            “ _Christine_ ,” the wind whispered, and the spell was broken.

            Evelina walked forward carefully.  Most of the snow had been cleared, shoveled aside to drift beside the path.  It had continued to snow since, and Evelina was hesitant to trust her footing.  She walked with utmost caution, passing the pretty statues.  She paused to glance at them, sister angels holding lamps to aid in lighting the way.  More of their sisters lined the path, lighting the way.

            She paused beside one statue of a kneeling, robed figure.  It had no wings.  It also held a lamp in one hand, but the other was held up to cover its face.  An image of Erik guttered before her eyes, in his dark hood, his white mask, burning eyes behind it.  A fresh shiver coursed through her.  She moved on, stepping quicker now.  The cold silence of night was making her anxious, that was all.

            Evelina stopped before the building, and felt queasy unease rise in her stomach again.  Her initial impression had been right – it _was_ a crypt.  The large doors were flanked by twin reapers, scythes held high, skull faces grinning cryptic leers.  Skulls were stacked around the crypt.  Evelina could not decide if they were bone or stone, and felt no urge to touch them to find out.  Above the door, the angel’s arms and wings were outspread, seeming to provide a berth to safely rest in.  Behind it was a sprawling bush.  In the moonlight, Evelina thought she could see delicate thorns.  A rose bush perhaps?  It would be fitting, with the phantom’s obsession with his black roses.

            “Perhaps it’s inside,” she said to herself.  Evelina unfolded her arms, slipping a hand out from the shelter of her cape.  She pressed her palm against the door and gave it a push.

            Evelina huffed when the door did not move.  Perhaps it was heavier than she had thought?  She pressed both hands against the door and pushed harder, _harder_.  But it did not move.

            Defeated, Evelina stepped back, glaring at the door.  If she could not get in, how was she to find the rose?  How could she retrieve it?  How could she be free?

            Weary, she raised her head further to look at the angel.  Evelina frowned at it, then squinted through the flurries of snow.  What was it holding in its hand that was so dark?  Could it be?

            There in the statues hand hung the third black rose.

***

            Evelina’s hair was wet with melted snow by the time she returned to the dressing room.  Darkness still boiled within the mirror.  Erik seemed to lounge within it.  Evelina felt her heart slam in her chest at even the sight of him, horror boiling inside her.

            “Erik.  I have a problem.”

            Green eyes slid over to her, but she was only greeted with silence.

            Evelina sighed, loudly.  “It’s too high.  I can’t reach it.  Its in the crypt statue’s hand!  How do you expect me to reach it?”

            “ _You are a clever girl, Christine_ ,” Erik replied, “ _you will find a way.  Perhaps some tools shall be needed._ ”

            Evelina balled her fists in her cape.  “Is that all you have to say?  You have nothing to help me with your own foolish puzzle?”

            Erik waved his hand.  “ _I did not make it impossible.  Return when you have the rose_.”

            Evelina whirled, crossing to the doorway.  She stopped there, turning around again.  “Why did you not come to me out in the . . . the garden?  Why the cathedral, but not the garden?”

            “ _I come when you need me.  I have always been there when you need me; why would this be any different?  When you grieved your father’s death, I was there to be your angel.  When you needed to be taught, I was there.  I have always been there, I will always be there._ ”

            “I need you in the garden,” she whispered.  “Erik, I cannot reach the rose-”

            “ _You do not need me yet.  This you can do on your own._ ”

            Evelina shook her head, damp hair flinging around her.  She stormed her way back through the opera house, back to the ruined cathedral, out to the garden.  The bitter cold wind tore at her cheeks and her hair.  Anger warmed her against it, though.

            “Tools,” she muttered to herself.  “What tools?  There’s nothing out here but snow!”

            She walked back and forth across the garden, looking through the snow for something, _anything_ that could help her reach just a bit further.

            And then she saw it.  Rather off the path, propped against a statue, was a shovel.  She couldn’t remember seeing it before, but that meant nothing; the shadows were strange enough that it could easily be hidden.

            Evelina stared at the snow for a moment, considering its depth, as if she had a choice of not walking through it.  She sighed, huddling under her cape.  She stepped forward, out of the cleared path and into the snow.

            Her foot sank, the heels of her shoes covered in snow.  Cold stabbed into her foot, wrenching a gasp from her.  She shivered but pushed forward.  Each step crunched through the snow, each step washed her in fresh cold.  Evelina grit her teeth against the discomfort, the near pain of the cold.

            She yanked up the shovel as soon as she reached it, and all but ran back to the path.  She gasped and hissed to herself, leaning against a statue to shake her feet, as if she could so easily dismiss the cold.  But she had what she needed, and that was what mattered.

            She hated to admit Erik was right, but she had a tool, and hopefully it would do what she needed.

            She walked quickly to the crypt again, carrying the shovel in both hands.  Her foot slipped, and for a moment she thought she would fall, but she regained her balance before the ice pulled her down.  She finally reached the crypt.  Evelina stared up at the angel and the rose.

            It was a woman, she realized, with pert breasts beneath a flowing gown.  Her face was soft and sweet, with rounded cheeks and full lips.  Her arms and wings were outspread, matching the welcoming smile on her mouth.  She was pretty, peaceful.  She suited a place of eternal rest.

            Evelina shifted her hold on the shovel until she could raise the handle up.  Carefully, she raised the tip up to the angel’s hand.  The rose was balanced in the crook between her thumb and palm.  She moved carefully, not wanting to injure the statue in any way; it was too lovely a thing to do that to.

            She could hear the wood and stone scraping together as she slid over the palm.  “Just a bit higher,” she whispered, “just a bit, please . . .”

            The handle lifted.  Nudged the rose.  Tipped it.

            The rose slanted, a dark shadow through the snowflakes, and fell from the angel’s hand.


End file.
